Non-Fiction Fairy Tale
by honeybadgerhook
Summary: AU. Emma picks up a part-time job at a local library, where a local professor is researching his next book.


_It's been a bad, bad month and I just need to make with the fluff for a bit. I have no idea what this is or where it's going, but it has my two favorite things, libraries and Captain Swan, and I can't really ask for much more than that._

_Disclaimer: The views expressed by Emma Swan do not necessarily reflect the opinions of all (or any) library workers. She's in a bad place right now. But she'll get there, maybe with the help of a fairytale or two…_

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><p>Emma eyed the baby stroller—no, the double-wide monstrosity—that squeezed between the tidy bookshelves, excited howls erupting from its pint-sized occupants (and possibly rupturing Emma's left ear drum) as it stopped somewhere around "DIS" (and effectively blocked the aisle from all other use.) Pasting on a pleasant smile, Emma backed out of the aisle, pulling her cart of newly returned books with her and heading for the adjacent aisle while Mom and the Screaming Wonders decided between Frozen or Tangled tie-ins. As soon as the stacks blocked her from view, though, Emma sighed in frustration.<p>

She liked the job, really. Most of the time the patrons kept to the reading chairs or study carrels, leaving her to sort, straighten and shelve in relative quiet; monotonous, yes, but it gave her time to think. Think—the exact thing she had avoided doing for the last ten months, but a broken lease never came with a broken heart discount and work is work. All that said, library plus kids meant forts built out of _the Berenstain Bears_ and Mary Margaret's story time events attracted them like Snow White attracted forest critters. Judging by the rising noise level in the children's end of the library, tonight's reading of _Beauty and the Beast_ promised to draw quite the crowd (and leave quite the proverbial literary wreckage).

The tell-tale clicking of obscenely high heels broke Emma's concentration and she turned to find Belle striding toward her from the reference desk.

"Emma," the brunette said softly, keeping up the pretense of a 'library voice' even as the toddlers in the aisle over shrieked. "Mary Margaret just called in sick this morning and I have to take over her story time, only I have a hold list a mile long and now no time to fill it. Would you mind?" she asked, offering up a small stack of papers.

Holds. Not her favorite. Scurrying all over the building to find books for patrons who couldn't (or, more often, _couldn't be bothered _to) come in and look for themselves and half of them neglected to pick them up anyway.

Over Belle's shoulder, Emma spotted another mega-stroller—this one a four seater—rolling in through the main door, and she snatched the papers from the young librarian with a rushed, "Sure".

Belle beamed. "I've been advising a local professor on some research titles for a book he's writing. They're all for him, actually. You'll just need to pull the holds and then process them if he turns up before I'm done."

Emma paged through the list, seeing only hours of bending and crouching.

When she looked up again, Belle was already shepherding kids down the aisle toward the large wooden rocking chair and braided rug that served as their story time corner. Sliding her loaded cart into a free spot at the end of a shelving unit, Emma grabbed an empty from the next stack as she made her way across the library, leaving the excited squeals behind her.

Pulling her cart into the back end of the towering adult nonfiction stacks, Emma glanced at the rows and rows of spines before her, breathing the first call number on her list.

"Nine-ten-point-four-five, nine-ten-point-four-five…"

Finding a healthy stock of the number, Emma instinctively picked up and old tome with spine so worn and faded, she had to flip open the cover to check the title.

On paper, browning with age and smelling faintly of time itself, boldly scrawled _A General History of the Robberies & Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates._


End file.
